


Witch's Hunter

by Nenalata



Series: Seeing Red: Tales from the Rory Hawke-Verse [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Brief Danarius (Dragon Age), Character Mentions, Dysfunctional Family, Mages (Dragon Age), Magic was meant to serve man and never to rule over him, Multi, Names, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Red Hawke (Dragon Age), Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry, Slavery, Varania - Freeform, seriously so many siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 05:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19457527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: "I do not know how to begin except to say that I'm sorry. I never thought I would have to protect my child from magic's harm.”Fenris was once a slave in the Tevinter Imperium, and his children never knew until now.Note: this time, like, 100% of this story relates toFifteen Shades of Redand its associated stories.





	Witch's Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> I see you, letting me know you actually care about my Gen 2 Hawkémon...we've got some evolutions now; new names and everything (they get tagged appropriately as they evolve--er, grow up). 
> 
> I'm glad I have at least a smidge of non-self-indulgent reasoning to post these! Thanks for enjoying 'em! This one is a couple of chapters so it isn't devastatingly long...

There were a lot of things Thistle knew about his father. He hated fish, no matter how it was cooked. He liked apples raw or cooked every single way…except if it was served with fish. He knew how to fight with a greatsword or even a maul that was as tall as he was, but he also knew how to protect, how to stand quietly and loom in a threatening way. His white lines were everywhere on his skin, and sometimes they hurt him. Those lines would light up blue when he was taken by surprise. He liked Ma as much as he loved her, even if he never said either of these things out loud. He called Ma “Hawke” because it was the only name she had that she didn’t hate—besides ‘Ma’ or ‘Mama,’ of course. He hadn’t learned how to read until he was an adult and Ma had taught him. He was strong enough to carry Sweetpea on one arm, although Thistle was twelve and Pipes was nine and were thus no longer viable options.

He hated magic. He didn’t even like being around Bethany when she was casting spells, even though he _did_ like Bethany.

So it only stood to reason there were many things Thistle did _not_ know about his father. Where his own family was. Why no one, not any one of their friends, talked about his family, and certainly not about his parents. Why he had those markings. Why they did what they did. Why he had to have Ma teach him letters. Where he’d grown up. How he always knew when there was a bear near the village, or bandits, or something else that would make people have to run or hide, even though Ma was better at _avoiding_ any of these things.

Why he’d turned ashen-faced, why his sword had dropped from his fingers with a _clank_ , why he’d backed away when Pipes had gotten in a good hit during sword practice and felt bad and asked Feather’s cut to please close, and why, when it did, he’d backed away again and then run. And his sons couldn’t hope to catch up.

Pipes, of course, just stood, stared after him. “What did I do?” he asked hoarsely, and Thistle couldn’t answer. He too stared, the forest having swallowed their father up in seconds. He couldn’t even see a path, no crashed-through branches or leaves.

Just nothing.

“What did I do? Thistle? I did something wrong, didn’t I?” Pipes had started shaking. Two swords lay forgotten next to him—one short and new and dulled, the other hefty and sharp and storied.

“Of course not.”

“I did something wrong, didn’t I?”

Thistle looked around, back at the house. He could remember a time when they had a two-and-a-half room cottage, when it had gone up in flames. He could remember being on the run with two baby siblings, two bloodied parents, and new knowledge that he wished he never had. But none of that told him how to help his brother.

“Do you think I hurt him? I copied Bethany. Maybe I didn’t do it right. Maybe I got it bleeding worse. Oh, Maker. Thistle, I hurt Feather.”

Thistle couldn’t respond. Where was Ma? Why couldn’t she come out of the house? It was a real house, one-storied and stone with a proper garden and a bedroom for each of them and even guestrooms. Why couldn’t Ma storm out, scold them for staying out too long, tell them she would go grab Feather and be right back?

But Ma did not come, and Thistle and Pipes were on their own.

“Well, if he’s hurt, we should stay here,” Thistle suggested with the bravado an older sibling had to possess at all times. “If he needs our help, he’ll know where to find us.”

Pipes nodded again and again. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s wait for him.”

They sat on the grass next to the discarded weapons. The sky turned orange, then red, then purple. The air grew chillier, a soothing crispness that always came at the end of Nevarran summer. Footsteps crunched behind them, and Thistle nearly wrenched his back twisting around. But it was only Sweetpea, frowning at them with her little hands on her hips.

“Ma told me to come get you because you’ve been out for way too long,” she informed them, enjoying her brief role as their superior, as Ma had apparently appointed her.

Pipes opened his mouth in excitement, probably to ask if Feather had come home, but Thistle silenced him with a sharp glare. If Sweetpea didn’t know anything, then it was best not to give her a reason to tattle.

“We’re looking for salamanders,” he lied swiftly. Sweetpea’s green eyes widened.

“I didn’t know Nevarra has salamanders,” she told him, but the doubt in her voice was masked by curiosity.

Guilt wormed its way into Thistle’s heart, and he knew Pipes was now the one glaring for abusing their baby sister’s trust in such a way. “Well, that’s why we’re finding out, right?”

It was a relief when Sweetpea plopped down next to them and began hunting through the dirt, too. “Careful.” Thistle swatted her hands away from the Blade of Mercy, where she’d nearly sliced herself. She stared at his face and squinted.

“Why’s Feather’s sword here?”

A particularly unsavory Tevene phrase flashed through Thistle’s guilt-ridden mind, but Pipes tried to cover for him. “He’s off looking for salamanders, too. Just farther away.”

Sweetpea’s eyes narrowed even further. “I don’t believe you.”

“Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe anything, Peabrain,” Pipes snapped. She recoiled like he’d brandished the practice sword at her. “Just wait with us.”

But she rose to her feet, cold waves of disdain rolling off her six-year-old frame. “I’m telling Ma. You’re being mean.”

“Sweetpea, _don’t_ tell her—“

“Yeah? Don’t tell Ma what?” Ma asked from behind them. Thistle managed to conceal his surprise, because he was the one most used to her somehow sneaking up as a habit. Sweetpea and Pipes were not as experienced, and thus not as subtle. Pipes jerked away, Sweetpea opened her mouth, and Thistle cut both of them off.

“Me and Pipes are just teasing her, Ma.”

Ma ignored their fresh squabbling, which was surprising on its own. Instead, she surveyed the trees ahead, eyes narrowed much like Sweetpea’s had. Thistle’s hands got clammy. And when the glint of Feather’s sword in the sunset caught her eye and her face went blank behind her tattoo in a way Thistle had never seen…

“Where is he?”

Not one of the three of them dared to speak up. Not even guileless Sweetpea. But Ma still waited, the lines of her body taut like bowstrings, some unrecognizable emotion painted all over her face that Thistle could only label as _not good_.

“He ran away,” Thistle finally said. He didn’t recognize his own voice. It had been happening a lot with his voice changing, and even though it didn’t crack this time, the words made it less of a blessing.

“Why?”

Pipes burst into tears, and it was almost a relief, because Thistle had no desire to rat his brother out. “It was me. He ran away from me.” Ma seemed ready to interject, but Pipes’s confession was a tidal wave. “I was just copying Bethany, Ma. I thought Feather doesn’t mind when Bethany heals cuts, I only did what Bethany did when I helped her make pie and I got cut, but maybe it’s not like a paring knife cut. Ma, he ran so fast. I didn’t mean to hit him that hard, I really didn’t. He must be so mad at me. I just wanted to help but he ran _so_ fast.”

Ma’s face wasn’t so much blank as just _white._ And now Thistle could identify the emotion on her face, because he was starting to feel it himself just by watching her: panic.

Pipes must have caught it, too, because he wailed, “ _Ma_ , Feather _hates_ me.”

Ma’s head jerked from where she was glaring at the forest to stare at her son with dawning horror. She got to her knees, not even paying attention to where the blades were—she’d always been good at avoiding that sort of thing—and met him at eye level.

“Nothing you could ever do could make your da hate you.”

Pipes sniffed, not bothering to wipe his eyes or nose or mouth. Thistle had lost his ease with crying when he’d been six, and Sweetpea always tried to be as different from the overemotional Pipes as possible, but tears had always come easily to Pipes. Ma said it was healthy, but he sure didn’t look healthy now. In fact, he looked rather sick.

“Then why did he run from me?”

Ma didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem to know how, or what. So while Ma tried to think, Thistle opened his arms, and Pipes curled into them like he was a little kid. Somber Sweetpea followed suit, joining the hug probably only because the situation was just so tense. Thistle held his siblings close, black hair of the same shade tangling together as they bumped heads.

“Pipes.” Pipes poked his tear-streaked face out of the huddle to blink at their mother. She was still on her knees in the growing dark, and reached out a hand. Pipes disentangled himself, leaving Thistle cuddling Sweetpea, and latched onto it. “You’re so tough.” Pipes sniffed. “I need to ask you a favor, not just to me, but to your da. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Thistle held Sweetpea close. He recognized this pattern. He wished he didn’t, and he wished he didn’t have to let it happen, and he wished he knew why it was happening. But he knew to stay quiet and allow Ma to let Pipes know she trusted him as if he were a fellow soldier.

Maker, but what Thistle would do to keep Sweetpea from going through this. His arms tightened around her.

“Go home with Thistle and Sweetpea. Stay close, and stay there. I’m going out to get Feather. He has some stuff to work through, and he doesn’t always remember that we work stuff through _together_ as a family. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes you don’t.”

“Yeah.”

“So me and Feather might be gone for the night. And what I want you to do in the meanwhile is remember every single time Feather did something that made you laugh, or smile, or whatever, okay? And keep that real tight and real close. And make Thistle and Sweetpea do the same.”

“I don’t needa remember that!” Sweetpea argued, but Thistle shushed her and agreed to follow Pipes’s—and Ma’s—directions.

“I promise, Ma.” And Pipes led them all back, even Ma, but she only grabbed her daggers and left again. Thistle tried to be calmed by the sight of her armor left untouched on the stand, that she’d gone out unarmored, just armed.

So instead, he rebraided Pipes’s hair, sitting on the floor of Thistle’s room. Sweetpea demanded her hair get braided, too, but she wanted _two_ braids, so Pipes helped. She probably didn’t realize Pipes got quieter, focused on his hands and the task and the familiar feel of her hair, but Thistle was grateful for her suggested distraction all the same. Pipes even calmed down enough to complain about the length of Thistle’s hair, that he’d cut it too short to braid.

The reason was actually because he’d heard the ranger’s son mention something flattering about an elven mercenary that had come through, and one afternoon while staring in the mirror, he figured why not, why not show off his ears a little? He’d had long hair since he was a little kid, after all. It wasn’t about the boy, really—the ranger’s son always tried to look good, too. It just made him think about maybe changing it up, being more grown up-looking…

“It’s still longer than the rest of the boys’ around here,” Thistle reminded him, finishing off his share of Sweetpea’s braid. “I can still tie a leather cord in the back.”

“It’s boring,” Sweetpea informed him.

“Thanks, Pea.”

“Ma has short hair,” Pipes said suddenly, rocking back on his heels. All three of them were comfortably barefoot, but Thistle noticed gooseflesh on his arms in the chill of night, even in their rooms. He got up and wordlessly tugged quilts out of his wardrobe while Pipes spoke. “She told me she wishes she had long hair like us.”

“No, Feather doesn’t have long hair,” Sweetpea reminded him.

“No, ‘us’ like the three of us.”

Thistle arranged two quilts around their gathered knees and rubbed his cold hands together. “When I was little, before you were here, Sweetpea, I tried braiding her hair. Feather used to do it for me, and I noticed he never had for her, so I thought I was helping.”

They all were quiet for a moment. “Feather told me someone pulled her hair too bad,” Sweetpea spoke up. “I know that hurts a lot. I like when Feather combs my hair because he combs so much more good.”

Thistle knew more about his parents than either of his siblings. He knew that Ma been in Kirkwall when the Chantry exploded, far across the Waking Sea, when she was still pregnant with him. He knew her sister was a Grey Warden because they’d gone deep beneath the world to fight darkspawn and seek treasure in the dwarven ruins, and because Bethany would have died if they hadn’t found Wardens nearby. He knew Ma had been friends with a sailor who stole from the qunari, and a creepy Dalish blood mage, and a runaway slave, and a mysterious Chantry brother, and even had the captain of the Kirkwall guard in her pocket when she’d been younger and still in the Free Marches and still causing trouble. He knew Ma had killed the man who had started all the problems with mages and people who used to be part of something called the Templar Order, people different from red templars. He knew Ma had done something enormous and dangerous with the Inquisition, and while he’d been too young to remember Skyhold or her absence during that job, he did remember Feather yelling at her when she came back from some second job, because it was the only time he’d seen his father get on his knees and cry, to beg her not to do it again.

He knew what they both looked like covered head to toe in blood not their own.

Their parents had never told him any of this, however. He’d had to learn it from Uncle Varric’s rarer and rarer visits, the other bits from gossip, and the last from his own painful experiences. Thistle’d had to get accustomed to not asking and not knowing these things, while his siblings had never questioned it as anything other than normal.

Pipes didn’t seem ready to volunteer any further pieces of conversation after Sweetpea’s proclamation. But Sweetpea, of all, people, noticed his downturned lips and took initiative. “I liked when Feather took us skating on the Minanter,” she said clumsily. “I like roast chestnuts.”

Thistle nodded encouragingly. “You looked very pretty in your dress.”

“Really?” Her green eyes sparkled, and she inched further into their circle. Her knees knocked into Pipes’s. Even he offered her a smile now.

“The color was nice on you,” Pipes agreed, making Sweetpea preen. His smile grew into more of a smirk. “Even when you spilled cider on it.”

Sweetpea scowled so fast no one ever would have believed she had looked charming in her life. Thistle hurried to interject before a poking competition could break out. “That was the first time I ever saw Feather get drunk.”

“Really? I thought once…”

They chattered long and late enough that the tension had eased out of their shoulders, Pipes’s most of all. Sweetpea was leaning on Pipes’s shoulder, half asleep while Thistle talked, when all three of them heard the front door open. No voices, only boots and clanking metal of unbuckled bracers.

They all got very, very quiet. Quiet enough to hear all that armor removed in equal silence. Quiet enough to hear familiar footsteps—footsteps that sounded bare as their own. And when the door of Thistle’s room finally opened and Feather came inside just past the doorway, the three of them were even quieter, huddled under their two blankets and holding hands underneath. No one spoke for a minute that stretched into eternity.

Then Feather came inside for real, sitting crosslegged in front of them, and when Sweetpea tossed a corner of her and Pipes’s quilt over his knee, he grabbed it like it was a lifeline. His voice sounded rusty when he spoke, head up, flicking his eyes to Pipes, to Sweetpea, to Thistle, back to Pipes. “I do not know how to begin except to say I’m sorry.”

Pipes surprised Thistle by not bursting into tears anew. He did not, in fact, say anything at all.

This seemed to rattle Feather even further, but he took a deep, shaky breath, gearing himself up for something, and the next sentence came out of his mouth like a crossbow bolt. “I was once a slave in the Tevinter Imperium.”

The silence that had weighed heavy on them before now felt crushing.

“We did not speak of it because…it was a long time ago. Because it was no longer true,” he added, like a reminder. “And then,” Feather looked at Thistle, and then away, like he hadn’t mean to, _which felt so much worse_ , “it felt too late to begin. And we never…I never…” Feather’s fingers had begun trembling on the quilt, and then squeezed the cotton so tight some vague corner of Thistle’s mind wondered if it might tear. But the trembling stopped. “There are some things I didn’t realize I was still running from. That I did not confront. Consider.”

“Me?” Pipes finally asked, voice small, and Feather’s whole body jerked like he’d been electrocuted.

“No,” he insisted. “Never you. Never you, _amatulus_.”

“But you did run,” Pipes said, a hint of accusation creeping into his voice. “You did run from me.”

Feather’s black brows pushed together, almost a frown, but more like shame. And there was a part of Thistle that thought he deserved it, thought his own father _deserved_ to feel ashamed, that he’d made his own son cry so many times in one day, some cruel part of him that didn’t care he was being unfair.

“I ran from you,” he said, admitted, after another silence shorter than the last, “because I thought I’d left all my fear in Kirkwall. That my sister’s abuses of magic did not relate to me. That I could leave the right sort of magic to people like—Mama’s sister. That I would never again let magic harm more people I cared for.” Feather took a shaky breath. “I never thought I would have to protect my _child_ from such harm.”

 _His sister_?

“Why are you scared of magic?” Pipes asked, and Feather stiffened.

“This is not the—“

Pipes sniffled, just a little, just enough that Thistle noticed and Feather did not, and that cruel, unfair part of him took over. “This _is_ the time,” he interrupted, unaware his grip was pulling the quilt closer to him and his siblings. “You’re afraid _now_. It’s not a long time ago. Are you going to wait until it’s too late again? You’re going to let Pipes get scared because _you’re_ scared and he doesn’t even know why?”

Something furious, hurt, and dark flashed behind Feather’s eyes. Thistle retreated under the quilt even further, horrified with himself but unable to voice an apology he did not feel. Sweetpea’s clammy little hand reached for his leg.

“Stop yelling,” she mumbled. “You’re loud.” She punctuated the accusation with a yawn. He knew it was well past her bedtime, but also knew that if he let her go that Feather would go, too.

Indeed, Feather did twist around to glance at the doorway, as if searching for help, an exit. But Ma did not appear. The sigh that escaped him sounded like he’d been holding it in for decades.

Feather held out his arms, palm side up. He flexed his fingers, and the markings wrapping around his body flashed, bright and brilliant blue. None of his children flinched. “These are lyrium,” he said, “branded into my flesh by my former master.” Thistle felt a chill creep up his spine. _My former master_. “I…fought for them. A competition. I competed in some arena to earn the right as the magister’s lyrium experiment, in exchange for my mother and sister’s freedom.” Feather flicked his eyes at his children’s reactions, and none of them bothered to hide their stunned expressions.

A mother. A sister. A competition. A master. Lyrium.

These things, these histories went far beyond apples and reading lessons.

“I remember none of this.” Feather’s voice yanked Thistle back from the fog in his mind. “The agony of this branding erased any of this life I may have retained. I remember nothing but fragments of memories when your mother and I—“ he made some vague gesture, and for some inexplicable reason, Thistle fidgeted, “and when I found my sister again, only for her to betray me to the magister who once owned me.”

Sweetpea’s tired green eyes bore into Feather’s, and Thistle thought she was trembling before he realized it was his own arm around her shoulders, fingers caught on her braids. Pipes stayed still like a statue.

“My sister,” Feather continued, spitting out the word with such vitriol it was clear this was an old, uninhibited memory that he never had prepared his children to know, “was a mage. She had betrayed me to become more powerful, to have more standing in a nation built on the bones of slaves and fueled by their blood.” His eyes snapped up all of a sudden, piercing them with that familiar look that said he was off in some other world. It was Pipes who did the familiar movement, the slight tilt of his head to disturb Feather’s line of sight and break him out of it, and Feather came back to himself with the usual abruptness.

Pipes spoke before Feather could fall back into that place again. “Would you still love Ma if she were a mage?”

Feather didn’t move for so long that Thistle feared he would never answer. Sweetpea cuddled closer into the crook of Thistle’s arm, and he tucked the loose strands of her long black hair behind her pointy ears. Pipes’s breathing sounded so loud to him. He imagined his little brother’s fingers curling and uncurling on his knees under the quilt, nails digging into his brown skin leaving white crescents behind, struggling not to cry. Thistle bit the inside of his lip hard enough to hurt.

“No blood nor demon nor magic could ever keep me from her,” Feather finally said. His voice cracked and he didn’t even cough to hide it.

“Well, you loved me before you knew I was a mage,” Pipes answered, voice quaking and tight, “but then you found out and _my_ magic made you _run_.”

Thistle, Sweetpea, and Feather stilled. There was a glint in Pipes’s eyes, anger and hurt made visible. Thistle wished the glint would just spill into tears, but no, it remained. Feather’s eyes, by contrast, stared in such raw horror and pain that Thistle decided it was worse to look at him than Pipes.

“ _Amatulus_ —“

“I want to be alone now,” Pipes said, jumping to his feet and pulling the quilts away from everyone. Sweetpea complained when the cold air hit her, but Pipes didn’t even spare her a glance and kicked the fabric away. He sidestepped them all before anyone else could rise. He was already halfway through the door, back to them, when Feather managed to stand and call his name.

“Pipes. Son.”

Pipes stopped in his tracks, spine straight. Feather’s hand was half-outstretched, white lines prominent on his skin. Thistle was glad he couldn’t see either of their expressions.

“I’m going to bed,” Pipes said after a too-long second. Then he left, his door shut, and Feather stood in Thistle’s room for only a few more long seconds before he left, too.


End file.
